Soccer Dad

The real extremists

I was greatly relieved to see the following editorials in the aftermath of Hamas's near victory in the Palestinian elections. From the NY Times the editorial was "The Palestinians Unwelcome Goverment" :

The Palestinian people have a right to vote for whatever parties they choose, and the nearly 50 percent support won by Hamas made it the second-largest group in Parliament. But the Palestinian Authority's friends are not obliged to conduct business as usual with a government that will now include a terrorist party whose leader, Mahmoud Zahar, has expressed his ambition to destroy Israel and his support of continued terror against Israel.

The Washington Post's editors weighed in with "Renegade Palestinians:"

Mr.Zahar's continued stated desire to wipe Israel of the map by means of terror can only be called repugnant. As a matter of sovereignty, Palestinians are entitled to vote for whomever they please. Other governments are entitled--indeed, obliged- -to use diplomatic and other means at their disposal to make clear their condemnation.

Actually if you're familiar with my style, you'd realize that the editors at neither paper have weighed in yet on the results of yesterday's Palestinian legislative elections. Rather I doctored editorials "Austria's Unwelcome Government" and "Renegade Austria" respectively from each paper. The editorials from early 2000 were responses to Austria's government inviting Nazi apologist, Joerg Haider into the the government.

Both the Times and the Post have made it clear in earlier editorials that they don't believe that there should be any intereference in the Palestinain elections even if that brings Hamas to power. I could be wrong but I also suspect that both papers will encourage America to work with any Palestinian government even one that includes Hamas.

Why? Well first of all part of what made Haider such a pariah was his stated nostalgia for Nazism. If that were a liability with the Palestinian Authority there would be widespread journalistic disapproval with its current leader Mahmoud Abbas who earned his PhD denying the Holocaust.

There is a different standard in the Middle East. If you're somehow deemed indispensible to peace, all sins are forgiven.

In 1993 Israel invited the PLO to make a government in its backyard. The premise that allowed the PLO to change from a terror organization to a "partner for peace" was its supposed reununciation of its terrorist weighs and its supposed acceptance of Israel's right to exist. In the 13+ subsequent years each of these premises has been refuted time and again; yet there is still the international cry for Israel to deal with this unreconstructed terror organization. Even it we're not talking about Hamas, the PLO which is the major component of the Palestinian Authority (h/t Boker Tov Boulder)has not effectively changed.

So even if you argue that the Palestinian Authority has at least paid lip service toward reconcilliation or that it's the only game in town, is there any reason that Israel should be playing that game?

In a devastating editorial about the recent interviews that Marwan Barghouti gave, the editors of the Jerusalem Post wrote:

The US reportedly pressured Israel to allow Barghouti to be interviewed, but it is not clear that much pressure was necessary, given that the jailed Fatah leader seems to have become the latest Israeli candidate - after Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas - for the position of the Palestinian leader with whom we can "do business."

According to this persistent way of thinking, Israel should be on the lookout for Palestinians who are radical enough to maintain the support of the Palestinian "street," and yet secretly harbor desires to cut a reasonable deal with us. Policy makers in Israel and the US are widely convinced that they can identify such closet moderates, who must be cultivated in place of the true radicals, in Hamas for instance, who seek Israel's destruction.

This is not to say that true Palestinian moderates do not exist, or that they should not be supported or recognized in some way. On the contrary, it is those on a never-ending quest for "moderate" radicals who tend to shun true moderates, by dismissing them as unauthentic and having no hope of achieving influence.

Barghouti, in his spate of prison interviews, left no doubt as to his authentic support for terrorism. When asked by British Channel 4 television whether "the time for using guns and bombs has gone," he responded, "The Palestinian people, and it should be very clear, have got the full right to resist against the Israeli military operations in the occupied territories in any way." He continued, "I support the Palestinian intifada and Palestinian resistance. I'm talking with you in jail; I'm not on the outside. And I still say that."

Well, why shouldn't he say that. According to the prevalent Israeli-American form of realpolitik, it is even good that he did, because if he were to unmask his true moderation, he would no longer be "authentic" and then where would we be

And remember Barghouti headed the "moderate" Fatah list that apparently won the greatest number seats. Even if one argues with naive hopefullness (as I heard last night on the news) that Hamas ran its campaign by emphasizing good governance how do you explain Fatah's popularity running a convicted terrorist at the top of its list? The problem isn't Fatah or Hamas, the problem is the people who elected them. The Palestinians have overwhelmingly voted for terrorist groups. There is no getting around that. By focusing on Hamas, it gives reporters an opportunity to sidestep what Fatah represents. But that just means that there's a big problem with the premises of the peace process. Is there really a critical mass of support for peace with Israel? Or has the introduction of Yasser Arafat and the PLO to Gaza and Ramallah radicalized the Palestinian population to a degree that peace is now impossible as things stand?

In other words perhaps the debate shouldn't be about how to treat a Palestinian government that includes Hamas but how to treat any Palestinian government.

If the ascendancy of Hamas forces the world to take another look at the Palesitnians and demand finally that their aid money, independence and statehood is dependent on their abandoning terror and dreams of destroying Israel perhaps some good will come of this. Unfortunately there's a real chance that, instead, the world will choose to sanitize Hamas, just as it did the PLO, and force Israel to deal with those who still wish that it did not exist.

Technorati Tags: Palestinian Authority, Israel, Hamas.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.